England are already doing just fine, thank you, without Andrew Flintoff in their one-day side, but in a fortnight’s time they will embark on a new, post-Freddie Test era. And the gaping hole poses a question: exactly what sort of a Test team do England want to be?

The conundrum is this: play it relatively safe with six batsmen, Matt Prior at No. 7, and four frontline bowlers? Or bat Prior at No. 6 and include Luke Wright as the fifth prong in the bowling attack? (The third option is to bat Stuart Broad at No. 7 and bring in Ryan Sidebottom, but this may be the least likely.) The route England choose will tell us a lot about their state of mind.

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